Comments about oreilly Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide:

Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide by Jonathan Hassell is "all you need to manage and Administer Windows Server 2008". That's what the book cover so boldly states. Let's look...
Inside you will find 14 chapters (449 pages) that cover:

- Introduction to Windows Server 2008
- Installation and Deployment
- File Services
- Domain Name System
- Group Policy and IntelliMirror
- Windows Security and Patch Management
- IIS 7
- Server Core
- Terminal Services
- DHCP and Network Access Protection
- An Introduction to Clustering Technologies
- PowerShell
- HyperV.

This is a truly helpful book to any server and network administrator, including those with years of experience in the "Windows Server world" and those who are just starting out. Unlike some of the O'Reilly books, this one is filled with crisp and informative screenshots that will guide you through many of the installation and configuration tasks.

It seems like the author did not skip anything, the coverage of the subjects is extensive and well thought-out. While some of the topics may require additional resources if you need in-depth knowledge on them, I've never seen a book that was written to cover all of the possible issues you may encounter as a server administrator working on Windows Server 2008.
Microsoft has introduced a few new things in this server OS and this book does an excellent job covering many intricate details of Windows Server 2008; especially those that differentiate Windows Server 2008 from Windows Server 2003.

Admittedly, some of the chapters - PowerShell or HyperV - just scratch the surface of these complex subjects. However, one would realize, the same publisher offers a plethora of books on the above-mentioned topics. Therefore, such light coverage of HyperV or PowerShell does not diminish the value of this book.

Strong 4 stars.

Comments about oreilly Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide:

Jonathan Hassel has written a very good book on Windows 2008. It has a nice balance of overview material (for instance the Active Directory Chapter 5) on concepts and design ideas in conjunction with some really easy to use step by step examples of 'How To' perform many of the tasks that a Win2k8 Administrator would need to be familiar with.
I especially liked the chapter about Server Core (new to 2008) - it was concise, but hit all of the cogent reasons for existence, an did a good job of capturing its setup and management tasks in relation to its GUI-less structure.
This is well-placed as an introductory (from a concepts and design standpoint) and practical guide, rather than an 'Internals' type of manual. I hope he will apply his explainitory talents to the just released Windows 2008 R2 in a future revision of this book.

Comments about oreilly Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide:

To start with, the book's cover says that it's only about windows server 2008 (as does the site)

"Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide takes a refreshing approach. You won't find the history of Windows NT, or discussions on the way things used to work. Instead, you get only the information you need to use this server. If you're a beginning or intermediate system administrator, you learn how the system works, and how to administer machines running it. The expert administrators among you discover new concepts and components outside of your realm of expertise."

This is absolutely not true. In fact, there are many references to the old windows servers the first few chapters, though that gets less when you proceed. Yet i still learned new things about windows server 2003 and pre while reading.

Though the explanations are good, you actually lack the software itself. If you really want to unserstand 100% of what is ment, you should have a windows server 2008 copy with you, so you can try it yourself.

Everything is explained in great detail, so it's good to understand by beginning administrators aswell. Yet again, for those the lack of examples make it a little harder.

Overall i enjoyed reading the book and i would suggest this book to those who want to know more about windows server 2008 and how to use it properly.